OTTAWA – After absorbing a few regulatory blows the past two weeks, CCTA president Michael Hennessy says he’s happy to be moving forward with, “a new regime at the Commission.”
The run of bad news, from the Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association point of view, began with the August 31st decision to grant the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network its requested 10-cent per month wholesale rate increase.
The must-carry-by-everybody-no-matter-what channel will now cost Canadian TV subscribers $0.25 a month instead of $0.15, boosting APTN’s annual revenue stream to about $30 million, not counting its ad sales. Since cable will feel the…
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TORONTO – While acknowledging he speaks from the position of a regional monopoly, Corus Entertainment CEO John Cassaday doesn’t think the CRTC should license other analog pay TV services.
Cassaday was speaking as part of a broadcast panel with CHUM Limited CEO Jay Switzer and Alliance Atlantis executive chairman Michael MacMillan at the BMO Nesbitt Burns Media and Telecom conference which concluded Wednesday in Toronto.
Earlier this year, four companies applied for new pay TV licenses from the Commission, looking for carriage requirements like the existing pay services Movie Central, owned by Corus, and Astral Media’s The Movie Network.
“They…
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TORONTO – CHUM Limited CEO Jay Switzer said yesterday that while conventional radio broadcasters will feel little immediate impact from the two satellite radio companies coming to market, the future repercussions he foresees makes him worry for the country.
Switzer was part of a broadcast panel with Corus Entertainment CEO John Cassaday and Alliance Atlantis executive chairman Michael MacMillan at the BMO Nesbitt Burns Media and Telecom conference which concluded today in Toronto.
When asked about the satellite radio decision, which CHUM and others vehemently protested but which federal cabinet decided late last week to let stand, Switzer…
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TORONTO – Jim Hamm has been appointed general manager for Rogers Media’s three new Atlantic Canada radio stations.
Hamm will head up the new FM stations CKNI-FM 91.9 in Moncton, CHNI-FM 88.9 in Saint John and CJNI-FM 95.7 in Halifax. Rogers was awarded the licences for the three new FM stations by the CRTC last November.
Most recently Hamm was the general manager for the Rogers Sudbury Radio Group, where he oversaw the day-to-day management and strategic planning for CJRQ-FM, CJMX-FM and CIGM-AM. In addition, he held the position of product and programming manager for the Rogers Ontario North…
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GATINEAU – Now that the two new Canadian satellite radio companies were scared into committing to more French language channels (going from three to four, or half of the Canadian channels they each will have), the federal cabinet issued a statement today saying it won’t interfere with the CRTC decision on the matter.
After two months of enormous lobbying pressure from all sides, as reported extensively by www.cartt.ca, Minister of Canadian Heritage Liza Frulla and Minister of Industry David Emerson late this afternoon said that cabinet decided to let the decision stand.
After looking at several…
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LET’S SAY YOU’RE AN MP, a cabinet-member even. You’re no dummy, despite the reputation politicians have. You know a lot about a lot of things. As a cabinet member, you’ve probably been elected more than once. You understand the voting public.
You also have a good grasp on what you don’t know and foremost, you probably know a quagmire when you smell it. And the battle which has arisen the past two weeks over June’s CRTC satellite radio decision (and just landed on your desk thanks to much lobbying) has descended into just such a confusing mess.
You can tell by…
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OTTAWA – The CCTA has asked the CRTC to add nine more Asian TV channels to the eligible satellite list for digital distribution in Canada.
Dragon TV, Southeast TV Station (SETV), CCTV-4, Beijing TV (BTV), Southern Television, Guangdong (TVS Satellite), China Yellow River Television Station (CYRTV), CCTV- Entertainment, Hunan Satellite TV (HTV), Jiangsu International TV have all been sponsored by the Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association.
"The new CRTC policy on foreign third-language services has opened the door to offering consumers more choice. Providing consumers with increased diversity in television programming," said Michael Hennessy, CCTA president, in a release. "These services…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC today approved Bell ExpressVu’s request to distribute partial or omnibus channels which contain original local and regional programming.
Satellite providers simply don’t have the transponder space to carry every single Canadian local over-the-air TV station signal (and they don’t want to, since much of the network programming is exactly the same, region to region), but subscribers in smaller centres still want to see their local news. That’s why many ExpressVu and Star Choice customers still have basic cable, as well as satellite.
So, earlier this year, ExpressVu asked for permission from the Commission to carry…
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THERE IS SO MUCH on the docket for lawyers working the telecom file in Canada these days, it’s almost hard to keep track.
The CRTC begins its hearings into forbearance from regulating the local phone market on September 26th (same week as Cable Week) while at the same time Industry Canada is deep into its Telecom Policy Review. Then there’s the Federal Court appeal of the CRTC’s telecom win-back rules and the ILECs’ VOIP decision appeal to cabinet, among other things.
So how will a coherent national telecom policy be developed from this muddle of related…
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QUEBEC CITY – "Global couldn’t care less about Québec City!" shouts a release today filed by the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
The union has filed a complaint with the CRTC over the broadcaster’s ongoing plan to consolidate its master control in Toronto, which was reported by www.cartt.ca on July 19th.
Like other broadcasters, Global is saving money by using the latest technology to have its master control in a few major centres, rather than have duplicates all over the place.
“We’re just doing what CTV and CBC and the French networks did ages ago,” CKMI station manager Karen…
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